Would a later bedtime help with early rising?

[becca3210]

Hello all my 9 month old's sleep is as follows.

Wakes up between 5:15-5:45
Nap 1 - 9 - 10:15 (on average)
Nap 2 1:30 - 2:45 (on average)

In cot by 6:40 for bed.

Typically wakes for milk around 2:30.

Do you think a later bedtime might help with the early rising? Any other critiques of our routine? Thank you

6.40 does seem quite early for bedtime; I wouldn’t normally suggest it as I’m not sure it always works but as you’re doing bedtime fairly early I’d try it.

Are they tired by 6.40? You could try a later bedtime but in my experience it doesn’t make a different.
My 6 year old still wakes before 5.30am and goes to bed at 7.

Thank you both yes he seems tired - rubbing his eyes yawning etc but might be worth trying to see if I can push it a bit later

@Wigglegiggle0520

Are they tired by 6.40? You could try a later bedtime but in my experience it doesn’t make a different. My 6 year old still wakes before 5.30am and goes to bed at 7.

Useful to know guess just might be the way he is!

My early riser would wake up even earlier if put to bed when over tired.

Age 13 he still wakes up pretty early for his age (6 something, but is getting better at going back to sleep for another hour)

No harm in trying though! On the plus side I've never had to drag him out of bed for school..

@Techno56

My early riser would wake up even earlier if put to bed when over tired.

Age 13 he still wakes up pretty early for his age (6 something, but is getting better at going back to sleep for another hour)

No harm in trying though! On the plus side I've never had to drag him out of bed for school..

Haha that is a plus! Thank you

When my son was this age, the later we put him to bed, the earlier he would wake up!
I worked on pushing his nap later and later. I did it by 10 minutes every day abc had to be really rigid with it.

Thank you maybe I need to rethink his second nap

Move the whole routine by an hour - pretend the clocks have changed.
Bed at 7.30
Up at 6.30
Nap 10-10.45
Nap 2-3

My 11 year old still wakes before 6 most days..... I'm ignoring Techno's comment. Teenage is my last hope of him sleeping til a decent time!

I'd push the first nap back a bit. Is he waking hungry? A snack before bed might push waking later too.
Although for us, later bed just meant tired, grumpy child the following day.

We had an early riser until he was 12 months. I kept reading a later bedtime wouldn't help an early wake, but my husband convinced me to move it from 6.45 to 7.30 and it really helped. It also helped pushing his morning nap to slightly later and capping it at 45 mins so he wasn't using it to catch up on missed morning sleep.
After a couple of weeks his wake ups averaged 6.30am rather than 5.30. Good luck! The 5am wake ups are a killer!

Thank you all - very helpful suggestions

With whatever you try you’ll probably find that it takes 3-4 nights to have any effect whether that’s good or bad so always worth trying something for a few days rather than stopping if it doesn’t work the first night

Yes good thinking. Will give it a week or so to see if any positive effect

I think you definitely have to give it a good length of time before considering it a failure - I know lots of people who say that a later bedtime wouldn't make any difference/would make them wake up earlier but they seemed to be basing this on trying it for one or two nights, often in unusual circumstances (e.g. on holiday).

Personally I'm sceptical that there are many children whose body clocks just cannot be reset - if they moved time zones surely they'd adjust? But, just like moving time zones, you might need to change the whole schedule to fit, e.g. meal times, rather than just putting them down later and hoping for the best. You also have to accept the trade-off of the later bedtime - I also know lots of people who lament their toddler's 5am wake up but then love that they're asleep by 7 and they get a long child-free evening and don't want to give that up; unless you're lucky and your child has an unusually large need for sleep it's one or the other, sadly!

Yes that is very true I do love the child free evening so if that is the trade off for early wake ups I will take it 😂 guess perhaps trying to have my cake and eat it!